Certain Qlik Sense Application containing external content can not be imported to the new upgraded Qlik Sense Enterprise deployment

When importing certain Qlik Sense Applications containing external content (eg. images) the import operation will fail. 

After upgrading to a newer version of Qlik Sense Enterprise when importing an application created in the previous version of Qlik Sense Enterprise through the import function in the Qlik Sense Management Console, the import fails and following error can be observed in the logs:

9245 20170705T095425.295+0200 INFO QTARCHLABEU03 System.Repository.Repository.Core.Resource.Support.AppUploadResourceSupport 131 090656d2-e9e8-4b23-bac0-27c24688c6e5 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM AppUploadResourceSupport: detected non-localized error, m=Invalid path [4]:Invalid path(Path longer than 260 characters) 06b18751-b903-4ddb-a2e0-8645879675ce 090656d2-e9e8-4b23-bac0-27c24688c6e5 
9246 20170705T095425.623+0200 ERROR QTARCHLABEU03 System.Repository.Qlik.Sense.Common.Communication.REST.Server.RESTEngine 154 910a0557-628b-4c63-8006-94a62fbafcc1 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM Invalid path [4]:Invalid path(Path longer than 260 characters) 910a0557-628b-4c63-8006-94a62fbafcc1

Qlik Sense is limited to the 260 character limit of path names in Windows. It seems that Microsoft might remove this limit in the near future. Currently the issue is investigated in Bugs:

1. QLIK-79030
2. QLIK-79110

However the solution for now might be that the logs will be simplified and more self explanatory. The idea is that the logs will point to the very specific external element that can not be migrated.
 

Currently the only workaround is to:

• shorten names of folders and files that are bundled with the Qlik Sense Application .qvf file (e.g. images)
• remove the external files and import the applications and add the content